Businesses and the Government must ready the nation's workforce for the rise of artificial intelligence to ensure companies can ride out the "cliff edges" created by the technological revolution, according to PwC.

The professional services firm, which has a major base at Glass Wharf in Temple Quay, last week announced it was on the cusp of developing a robot built with software that can forecast the economy more accurately than ever before. Following the announcement, the firm said AI had the power to overhaul business models and could leave workers sidelined and companies struggling to adjust unless preparations are made now.

It said firms and the state must double down on their efforts to improve the education system and help workers re-train to ensure AI delivers the much-heralded boost to the UK economy.

Jon Andrews, PwC's head of technology and investments, said: "There are different sectors that will be impacted in different ways. The vast majority (of workers) will not see the change happening to them and they will have a very different job by 2030. But some of them you can see coming and you can actually predict the changes.

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"If you take the logistics world, there is going to be a period of time as we move towards autonomous vehicles where it will continue to be cheaper to have an old vehicle that is non-autonomous with a person driving it.

"Then all of sudden that will flip and the business case will change and it will be worthwhile making the investment in autonomous vehicles. So we will see a cliff in terms of jobs there going more quickly.

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"We need to be prepared as a country on how we re-train people to think what other jobs those people can do ahead of that.

"But that will be largely predictable because you will be able to predict and see that business case changing."

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However, the rise of AI - coined the fourth industrial revolution - will also create new roles for human beings and could drive up productivity and bolster economic growth.

Jonathan Gillham, PwC's director of economics, said: "It will lead to some sectors experiencing strong and rapid growth, but the job of the UK policy community is to help create the right labour force going forward to meet that.

"We assume that the cost of those workers will rise because skills are going to be quite rare, they are going to be quite niche, but they do have to exist.

"We need to upskill workers that are currently in the labour market and improve our education systems."